Amassed a stash of reads that I wanted to but have been too lazy to share

Can't imagine life without a rice cooker. So you should read how NYT goes on and on about it. We still use a super old school one at home. It's National brand, baby blue with those lightweight clanging metal lids that have a black and white fat U-shaped handle. I tried to make my mother toss it and get a new one before. I'm glad she ignored me.

A glimpse at life in Alaska.

Please check out this thread of super hilarious and ingenious Thai ads on Lomotion.

I suddenly realised the other day that my hands look older already. Fuck. The hands and the neck and the eyes go first. Indeed. Fuck. NYT writes about hand youth. Don't you think they zoom in on the darndest things? I mean, hands are interesting enough but so common if you consider they've written about people who whiten their assholes before. Oops. Did that sound rude?

A death causing room. Doesn't it sound like it should be written into a Hollywood screenplay?

Wah, will definitely lose a lot of weight. Will also be very tired.

I hate mouthwash. It smarts and it makes the mouth smell super unnatural, which is very gross in its own way. But this is super fascinating.

Ah... Evidence that I did well to ditch all these whining people I used to hang out with. Prevents me from whining so often too.

Damn cute can.

I never knew you have to quit smoking in order to get cosmetic surgery.

And finally, you HAVE to see this thread of pictures. It's everything about nothing.

Pika Pika

Lawyer points out this article which explains the financial crisis to a 14-year-old using Pokemon as an analogy.

I love the font choices and layout.

Don't Blush. Sponsor a Flush!

I Sing For Toilets from Gino Federici on Vimeo.

If you think she's happy, she's happy. If you think she's sad, then she's sad.

This TIME 10 Questions for series is quite addictive to read. This one with Hello Kitty designer Yuko Yamaguchi, in particular, is a cheery break from everything dreary.

My favourites:

Why doesn't Hello Kitty have a mouth?
Sandi Saksena, Dubai
It's so that people who look at her can project their own feelings onto her face, because she has an expressionless face. Kitty looks happy when people are happy. She looks sad when they are sad. For this psychological reason, we thought she shouldn't be tied to any emotion — and that's why she doesn't have a mouth.

Hello Kitty has been with her companion, Dear Daniel, for quite some time now. What does their future hold? —Chien Tong in New York, New York
About 15 years ago, Japanese entertainers began to admit to their boyfriends and girlfriends, while before that it was a taboo because they were afraid of losing popularity. I didn't want to miss out on that, so we admitted that Daniel was her boyfriend...

check out

this papercraft website. the carousel is about, what, 28 pages? but i want to do it.

i've a feeling the adventurous would definitely be able to find a job in japan. detailed like that, it even makes sense that professional seducers should exist and be a rightful occupation.

and a profile of marc jacobs.

His designs for Louis Vuitton and his own solo label sell for almost £2bn a year, but he's known as much for his sense of humour as his Tootsie-style clothes and clinking accessories.

...After a lucrative collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, he set up stalls at the opening of Murakami's recent Brooklyn show, with market sellers hawking the real Marc Jacobs bags as if they were $3,000 fakes. He was there in black tie, giggling.

yeah, thought it was quite amusing when i first read about the stalls.

An article on NYT about people who pick their ice like they would pick their wine. My initial reaction was to laugh and wonder just how ridiculous people can be.

But then, I remembered how I stopped eating the ice kachang at Wisma food court when the ice was no longer as finely shaved and I thought, maybe it isn't totally totally ludicrous after all...

(No, seriously. The fineness of the ice shavings made hell of a lot of difference in that ice kachang. When it was very fine, the ice was powdery dissolve on your tongue soft. When the shavings were just bit bigger, you could feel the roughness in your mouth and some amount of chewing movements were required. It's back to finely shaved now though. Happy.)